Chapter 1

Elowen

I lost my first daughter at twenty-three weeks.

The doctors saved my life, only to tell me I could never safely carry another child.

Adrian sat beside the empty bassinet. He held me so tightly while I screamed until my throat bled.

"We'll still have a family," he promised, kissing my tear-soaked hair. "I swear to you, Elowen. You won't carry this pain alone."

Four years later, I sat outside a family courthouse with six-year-old Junie clinging to my hand.

Adrian's chair was empty.

Again.

Junie wore the yellow dress we had picked out together. Her red backpack stayed tightly strapped to her narrow shoulders. Inside were crackers, socks, a toothbrush, and *The Girl Who Kept the Moon*.

Two foster families had already returned her. She fully expected us to be the third.

She had spent all morning decorating the chair next to me. Blue ribbons. Silver stars. A crooked, hand-drawn card that read: *BEST ALMOST-DAD.*

It was the ninth important chair Adrian had promised to fill.

Our caseworker had already warned us. Adrian's constant missed interviews and absence from home inspections made us look like an unstable household. Twice, the agency almost tore Junie away from us.

I had completed every parenting class alone. I memorized Junie's asthma care plan better than my own name.

And I endured the same cruel question from evaluators, again and again.

*"After your miscarriage, are you just trying to replace the baby you lost?"*

I wanted to scream at them. Junie was not a cure for my grief. She was a little girl who hated peas, hummed when she was terrified, and slept with her shoes on because nobody had ever stayed.

I wanted her simply because she was Junie.

At 10:42 AM, Adrian's phone rang.

*Lila Hart.*

His expression shifted the moment he saw her name. It always did.

"Someone tried to open her apartment door," he said, already standing up.

"The hearing starts in eighteen minutes, Adrian."

"She's having a panic attack, Elowen."

"Then she can call the police."

"You know her trauma. You know she only trusts me."

I caught his sleeve. My knuckles were white. "If you walk out that door right now... don't ask us to wait."

He looked down at me. For a fleeting second, a shadow of guilt crossed his eyes. His gaze lingered on my pale face and my violently shaking hand. He *almost* stayed.

But then Lila sobbed through the speaker. He pulled free.

"Stop making this a choice, Elowen. It's not."

"It has *always* been a choice!"

I didn't care about my dignity anymore. But Junie did.

She made herself shrink into the plastic waiting room chair. "Did I do something wrong?"

Adrian finally looked at the little girl. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck, as if he still couldn't see the damage he was doing.

"Of course not, bug. We'll do this another day. I'll bring your favorite cake tonight, okay?"

"You said today," she whispered.

Lila screamed his name through the phone. Adrian flinched, gave us one last apologetic look, and walked away.

Junie stared at the closing elevator doors. Her little chin trembled, but she refused to let the tears fall.

"Can we take the ribbon back, Elowen?"

My hands were entirely numb as I untied the blue ribbon from his empty chair. I braided it into her hair because I desperately needed something to do with my hands before I ran after him and begged.

I hated that weak part of myself. After nine broken promises, a pathetic piece of my heart still wanted him to turn around.

He never did.

Judge Moreno called us inside. She looked at the file, then looked up at me with sympathetic eyes.

"Mrs. Vale, your husband signed his withdrawal as co-petitioner, and legally consented to your sole adoption. Do you wish to proceed alone?"

Junie grabbed my hand, her eyes wide with panic. "Can you still keep me?"

My throat closed.

From the careless way he had rushed through the signatures, I knew Adrian believed he had agreed to nothing more than another routine adoption delay.

He had never stopped long enough to read the page that permanently erased him from our lives.